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MatthewB comments on Karma Changes - Less Wrong
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I occasionally post despite fears of disapproval, but then immediately after posting my anxiety levels will become so uncomfortably high I delete the comment. Perhaps some people have noticed me doing this, but if they knew how anxious I felt I believe they would understand. It's kind of neurotic...
I also have some social anxiety as well. A usual amount, I think. And then I tell myself that posting on Less Wrong (which is not the 'real world') would be good desensitizing training. I think it has helped some, but occasionally it has the opposite effect. I once had a minor panic attack at a conference moments before giving a talk -- not because of the talk, but because I realized I wouldn't be able to delete a comment or a post I just submitted and thought I might regret.
Incidentally, the chances of me making a comment (and leaving it) doesn't correlate as much with my perceived quality of my comments as much as with my anxiety threshold at that time. Since I'm not very good at gauging my anxiety response, I tend to always rewrite my comments more and more conservatively until the first idea is all but lost. Then I'll submit the comment just because I spent so much time on it.
(Please don't respond that I probably shouldn't bother commenting; I kind of know that. I'm curious if the whole thing improves over time.)
I'm right there with you on this. As taa22 mentions below, there are often things that I do, and put a great amount of energy or expense into, only to give up for a variety of reasons (usually self-consciousness, which is the strangest thing to me, since I spent most of the 1980s on a stage of one kind or another, at the center of many people's attention).
I've noticed that I tend to do better when I try to censor (Allcorn, got it right this time) myself less than I usually tend to censor myself (I self-censor to a great degree, which is exactly what it sounds like you are doing).
This brings two issues to my mind:
• Are you destroying what you originally intended to say (in which case, I will not touch my original thoughts, as written the first time)? or • Are you strengthening your original intended thoughts (in which case, revision can often be a good idea. If this revision is not done in an attempt to censor oneself, but to further reveal a thought)?
I just recalled something... There are exercises that actors & musicians often do before they go onto stage in order to decease stress over potential mistakes. Is it the case that you might find something f this sort beneficial? It seems to me that irrational fears are often best countered by direct action, even if it seems to have nothing to do with the fears in question (this is what your typical theatrical warm-up exercises are geared to address)